


Marked

by Flowerflamestars



Series: A promise, marked [1]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOMAF AU, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And their marks match that, But so is Nesta, Cassian is Extra, F/M, One Shot, Rhysand is a protective little shit, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerflamestars/pseuds/Flowerflamestars
Summary: She studied the languages of other lands, of every human country she could access. At this point, she wasn’t even sure it was a language, at least as she knew them, though logic told her it had to be.With every failure her heart leap with dread, with hope, because if it wasn’t human, it had to be fae. Fae like her sisters, fae like the mark that had led Feyre to a whole new, immortal life.Rhysand hadn’t looked at her with pity.Nesta Archeron was going to find her soulmate, no matter what it took.





	Marked

Nesta’s words were in black.

Of her sisters, of three siblings each carrying words in a language that they didn’t speak, couldn’t read, it was Nesta who couldn’t hide hers. She was the only sister who’d been old enough to have them come in when their mother was alive, to see her stark, gentile horror.

Not that they were some strange language, scrawled in sharp, swirling glyphs on her little daughters pale skin. Horror, because Astra Acheron was proper- she was a woman of fortune who’d married a man of even greater standing, who’d discovered her words on her eighteenth birthday and proposed to her that very night. Her words were curled on her wrist in immaculate cursive, the name of her husband, beloved and above all, respectable.

Nesta, confused and all of ten years old, had exploded with fury when her beloved mother hand’t even told her what she thought the name was. Lady Archeron had called for a seamstress, and immediately began talking over Nesta’s head, trying to determine if there was any fashion at all that could cover that much of her neck.

Of her face.

At twenty five, Nesta hadn’t covered her mark in fifteen years. When her sister’s words had come in, she’d never been more glad she was the oldest. Feyre’s were even less like a name, a scattering in silver down her back. The writing of Elain’s was softest of all, a mezzanine of curling green letters bellow a collar bone.

Nesta was glad to be the eldest, with her vicious banner of words, starting under one cheekbone and flowing all the way down her neck. People had shied from her and looked at her strangely her whole life. Let them look at her and not at her sisters hidden words, so very indisputably fae.

Even without their words, Nesta could have told anyone they weren’t meant for this place, this forgotten village. The words were just proof, at least that her sisters, were meant for something more.

It was only once their fortunes had turned, once Feyre had been taken and come back to them, miraculously alive, that Nesta returned to researching her own mark. In quiet hours, while Feyre taught her how to paint, Nesta learned that fae words came in every color imaginable. It was easier for her sister to talk there, while her hands were busy, so Nesta came back again and again.

Life over the Wall sounded as savage and beautiful as any book had ever told Nesta it would be. But stranger still, Feyre had learned not all fae had words. In fact, most didn’t. But the ones that did spent their whole lives searching, the bond much more serious, more sacred, than human marriage.

But no one had been able to read Feyre’s words, starry in inhuman silver.

So when her sister set out again, back into that horror of a world, Elain and Nesta watched her go, hands clasped tight. Humans didn’t have gods to pray to, hadn’t for a very, very long time if the books Nesta read were true. But they had their words. And Feyre had her heart, her drive to survive. They could only hope she was going to find them- going back had never been a choice, not really.

When Nesta was twenty five, Feyre returned. Her bond mate not simply fae, but one of their High Lords, ancient and deadly. No matter how being in the same room as him sent whatever otherworldly force he was skittering along her skin, Nesta decided she liked him immediately. There was more love in his eyes when he looked at her sister than had probably existed in Feyre’s entire human life. Rhysand had waited centuries for her sister, and Nesta could see that hope.

She liked it, not that she would tell him that.

She would never tell him that, not after she’d turned from the window she’d stood before when they entered, the marked half of her features coming into view. A High Lord, with more human lifetimes behind him than Nesta could imagine, stopped dead. Stopped speaking, stopped breathing, to stare at her face.

And then done nothing, had smoothly tucked Feyre to his side and continued speaking of alliances and the war to come. Rhysand said nothing directly to Nesta for the entire night, her anger rising in tempo every single time she caught him staring at her.

Both the males he’d brought with him were doing it too, taking her in over and over again, but Nesta couldn’t forget that rattled breath.

He knew.

Which made him the first person Nesta had ever met who could read what was on her face. She’d spent the last year trying not to think about whether Feyre remained alive, had thrown herself into activity. Nesta slowly pried the move important deals of the trading deals from her ailing fathers hands, became the fearful face of the family business.

By night, by every still free moment she had, she was researching her mark. She studied the languages of other lands, of every human country she could access. At this point, she wasn’t even sure it was a language, at least as she knew them, though logic told her it had to be.

With every failure her heart leap with dread, with hope, because if it wasn’t human, it had to be fae. Fae like her sisters, fae like the mark that had led Feyre to a whole new, immortal life.

Rhysand hadn’t looked at her with pity.

Nesta Archeron was going to find her soulmate, no matter what it took.

—

The next morning, Nesta woke to a dull boom.

She was grumbling in the dawn light, muttering about wings. Wings. The thought had her shooting up straight up in bed, heart clenching painfully. Nesta was awake and ready for a fight before she had time to process the unfamiliar sound, the equally sure thought following it.

Today, she was going to find out.

She arrived at the breakfast table, laid early with tea and scones that the one maid even Elain couldn’t get to leave must have made. She’d thought to be there early, to think, but when she paced in all three of the males who’d come with her sister were seated already.

Nesta squared her shoulders. Very well, she thought. Nesta was the only female head of a merchant family on this entire damn continent. She spoke six languages, had spent her entire life taking the horror of strangers. Three fae males, reeking of danger, were nothing, nothing, compared to how badly Nesta wanted to know the words on her skin.

Forcing her breath even, Nesta sat at the head of the table and smiled through morning greetings. Before she could reach for one herself the male with hazel eyes had risen from his seat and was at her side, gently pressing a freshly poured cup of tea into her hand. Cassian, his name was Cassian- not that he’d told her it himself, he hadn’t spoken a single word the night before.

Nesta took the cup with a murmured thank you, trying to keep the confusion from her face as he sat back down as noiselessly and quickly as he’d rose. Confusion that sharpened into temper with burning speed at she drank her tea and found all three watching her as though she might snap at any moment, like a bomb about to go off.

Honestly. Nesta had welcomed them all- she hadn’t hidden gentle Elain from their palpable danger, so much as she’d wanted to. She’d congratulated her baby sister on her union to a fae lord, been truly happy for her. She’d fed them all and housed them and acted with every courtesy and - and they were looking at her like she was going to set them on fire given half the chance.

Spine very straight, she clenched the hand hidden on her lap and turned to Rhysand. Her voice was as light as Elains as she said, calm and bright as she didn’t feel, “You know, in all the reactions I get to my face, very rarely do people come to a dead stop.”

If possible, the males at the table grew even more still, more apprehensive at her words. Rhysands face was tight in a way she couldn’t begin to understand, infuriating as he said just as lightly back, “Marks are very rare, over the Wall.”

Every contained, polite plan went out of Nesta’s head at that bland tone.

“Marks like mine are very rare on this side of the the Wall as well,” she hissed, “but I cannot say anyone else has stopped breathing at the sight before.”

She was seething, furious, years of frustration burning up inside her. How dare this man, this male, this so obviously a good male, refuse to even acknowledge what he knew. Did he think he was protecting her from something?

“I don’t care,” Nesta snapped, the words falling in a rush from her lips. “I don’t care, do you understand? I am not ashamed. Of whoever they are, whatever they are. I will not be ashamed, but I want to know.”

Her sisters soul mate was taking her in with vivid, calculating eyes. Rhysands empty hands had settled before him, as though ready to shield from a blow. He looked at her and only her as he said carefully, “And you think I know?”

Nesta sat back in her chair, forcing her voice even. “You reacted,” she said, slowly, “Even if you can’t read it, you obviously know something. I will take whatever knowledge you have.” Her teacup clinked down gently on a saucer, but her free hand joined the other in a vicious grip on her skirts. Nesta didn’t want to beg, hated herself for it, but couldn’t let the chance go. “I have carried more words than anyone, in a language no human can read, different even from my sisters, on my face since I was ten years old.”

She had more to say, the story spilling forth, desperate to know, but she was interrupted by a strangled noise. Nesta’s head snapped to the side, to find the quiet male who’d handed her tea gaping at her in what could only be called horror.

“You were ten?” Cassian asked her, that first sound of his voice deep and rough. Nesta felt it in her bones.

Her eyebrows went up, she couldn’t help it. Something in that hazel gaze, green crawling in his eyes as she looked, kept her from speaking.

It was the most polite of the males, Azriel, the one who’d charmed Elain the night before that answered her silent confusion. “Illyrians, fae, if we’re lucky enough to have a mark, the words appear around thirty.”

Nesta tore herself from Cassians gaze, actual jealousy twisting in her chest. “When you’re old enough to find each other,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

Cassian was still watching her, pained. She could feel his gaze even when she didn’t return it, so obviously discomfited by her desperation. It was a sorry picture, she knew it, but she could not bend on this. But Rhysand was shaking his head.

“When we’ve come into our full strength,” he told her. Hesitantly, like a half remembered gesture, Rhysand touched her elbow. “What did Feyre tell you about fae bonds?”

His voice had gone soft, too soft. All of Nesta’s anger still raged, an endless depth of frustration. But that tone, that soft, familial touch, threw her right back to being ten- terrified and defiant, crying in the dark.

Nesta made sure her voice was cool when she spoke, calm. “They’re sacred.” She said, picking up her teacup once more. “Magical. Different than human marriages.”

“More different,” Rhysand told her, “than you’re imagining.”

Nesta had the horrible feeling he somehow really knew what she was imagining, that those purple eyes saw straight into the scared and hopeful heart of her. It made her brash, bold. “You are as my new brother,” she said, meeting his gaze head on, “why don’t you tell me about it.”

A smile quirked his mouth, she could practically see him thinking she was just as stubborn as her sister. But instead of fighting, maybe because of that affection, Rhysand sighed, and began to tell her.

Rhysand told her, with anxiety hovering around his eyes, the first story so many fae children learned. Of the words, the names, the blessing of knowledge. Of what those names indicated, what made them so very precious even to an immortal, magical people- the names that indicated soul bonds.

Nesta had grown very, very still.

She listened, frozen and intent, unaware until Rhysand stopped speaking, until she looked away with burning eyes, that Cassian had left the room.

—-

Cassian couldn’t watch any longer.

He was a Cauldron damned coward, but he couldn’t stay in that room and wait for the moment Nesta understood enough to be horrified. Couldn’t sit still while his brother told her in gentle, wondering tones, of soul bonds. That by meeting her mate, her immortal other half, Nesta would be anchored to the bond.

She’d be frozen, trapped like a dragonfly in amber.

Never again would she age or sicken. She would stay beautiful and strong, even more unable to stay in her own life, to live among humans without condemnation and fear.

Just from meeting her mate, by meeting him.

The name Nesta Archeron had been scrawled in bloody, vital red down his sword arm for centuries. Stupidly, hopelessly, he’d assumed her dead. Cassian had thought, knowing it was a human name, that he’d been meant to meet her during the last war. It was the only time he’d ever spent in the human lands.

He’d thought death had intervened, as it did sometimes even to fated bonds, and taken her before they’d even met.

For more than four hundred years he’d worn her name with pride. Had loved that memory, that hope it had given. Even if Cassian had never met her, he’d tried to live those long centuries in a way that brought honor to that lost piece of his soul.

But Nesta was alive. She was alive and young, brilliant, so beautiful it hurt his chest to look at her.

She was everything and more, and all Cassian had to offer her was more pain and suffering. He felt sick even thinking about it. She’d been a child, all of ten when Illyrian promise marks had sunk into her skin. The same marks that were tattooed between his wings- Cassian’s love, his battle glory, his name and promises. The individual marks of an Illyrian warrior, bled for and honored.

He’d strode from the breakfast room straight through the luxurious house and right to the front door, out into the sky. Even covered in snow and quiet, the Archeron estate was beautiful, palatial.

Bought by Tamlins grace, he knew, but Cassian couldn’t imagine Nesta hadn’t already turned that money into more. She practically sparked with intellect, with that unrelenting drive.

Drive to know the name of her soulmate, to know him.

And he was flying long slow circles around her house, fighting to gulp down the icy air. Hiding from her. Gods, he’d been so stupid.

He’d heard Feyre’s stories about her sisters, gentle, clever Elain whose soul mark was as obviously fae as Feyres. Her older sister, the one with the marked face who people shied away from. The sister that had never backed down, no matter how poor they became, who wore her infamy like a shield to hide her younger siblings.

Her older sister, whose cauldron damned name Cassian hadn’t known.

She’d struck him dumb, turning from the dying evening light. The sight of his name, his soul, etched in her pale skin had destroyed him. So he’d said nothing, happy just to be in a room with her. Unable to think a damn thing except how he was breathing in her forest fire scent, that he was hearing her voice, her mortal heartbeat in his ears.

It took him all of an hour to start panicking. To even begin to imagine the way other mortals had reacted to her, the difference she couldn’t hide. To realize what he already knew, that no matter how he cherished her, Cassian was a death knell to any normal human life she might have- that she might have ever had.

He landed lightly on on a curved roof, fluffy drifts of snow taking his concentration. Cassian rounded the corner of the roof and stopped dead all over again. There, bellow him, was Nesta. Even hooded and cloaked, wearing gloves, face hidden as she looked out from what must have been a truly lovely balcony in summer, he knew her instantly. Nesta burned in his senses, the roaring fire that his long lonely soul wanted to sink right into.

He allowed himself a single calming breath, before jumping down to meet her.

If Nesta Archeron was surprised by a full grown Illyrian warrior jumping from her roof to land a foot from her feet, she didn’t show it. Unstilted, she turned her head slowly, those grey eyes sweeping from the stance of his legs to his wings, flaring in landing.

Cassian was absolutely sure she missed nothing with that gaze. That Nesta was taking in every detail of him, weighing him. Everywhere her eyes went, he burned. Gods, those brilliant eyes. If she were Illyrian, he’d have made her a general for that canny gaze alone.

The fascinated, absolutely roaring arousal that was starting to pound in his blood stopped all at once as he sucked in a deep breathe of her scent. Not just fire, but salt. Nesta smelled like tears.

So he blurted without thinking, knowing Rhys wouldn’t have told her any of the important parts, “Your mark is Illyrian,” he said, the casual confidence he was trying to effect failing even to his own ears. “It’s a promise mark- name, vows, honor.”

Nesta had been looking out at the snowy trees, at his blurted words she turned back to him. Head tilted, the sharp, perfect lines of her face were framed by the morning light. He could almost smell her wanting, but her voice came out cool and light. “Illyrian?” She asked, that perfect control making him itch to touch her, “Like Rhysand, and Azriel, and you?”

“Like me,” Cassian said softly, meeting her eyes. And blinking, taking in what she said. “Why do you say Rhys is Illyrian?” He damn well was, but no one outside their territory knew it. No one noticed, even when they were all together. Seeing the Nightmare lord was easier, so much harder to ignore.

Nesta smiled like the viper that she was. Perfect, gods, she was perfect. “No wings,” she agreed, the full force of that sharp smile on him, “But there’s a certain commonality of features, bone structure, coloring.”  
  
She gestured up toward his own face, and Cassian had to fight the ridiculous urge to lean down until she was touching him. To have Nesta trace her findings over the line of his jaw, to map those markers of his heritage over his brown skin.

Instead, Cassian grinned. “He can make the wings come and go, actually.”

Nesta raised her eyebrows, Cassian helplessly noting that she’d pivoted her whole body toward his. “And you don’t?”

He was leaning too, head down to meet her. For all that she radiated strength, Cassian could have tucked her under his chin. “I wouldn’t want to,” he answered her honestly, thinking about how he could shield her entire body with his. That he would, that if he were lucky enough, Cassian would protect her for the next thousand years. “An Illyrian who can’t fly, it’s unimaginable pain.”

“The song of the wind,” Nesta shot back, clearly remembering. She pushed down her hood, braided hair shining like tarnished gold. “And you’re a soldier, aren’t you?”

Yes, Cassian thought, Nesta Archeron missed absolutely nothing.

He swallowed hard before answering, breaking from her gaze to look out at this peaceful place himself. It was easy to forget, in this heady, beautiful bubble of speaking to her, that he was about to go to war. That’d he’d fight to protect these lands, and in the bond, Nesta would feel every blow he took. “I command some of Rhys’ armies.”

He stepped forward to lean on the wrought iron barrier next to her, looking at his own dangling hands, calloused and scarred. How could he tell her? Cassian would cause her more pain, no matter what he did.

Nesta had made a small noise when he spoke, he didn’t realize it was a snicker until she turned to join him at the railing, a laugh in her voice. “Just some? And which are those?”

It stuck him like a blow, how painfully he wanted to make her laugh. Instead he smiled, drawled back at her, “The important ones.” Her sharp, amused face grew even keener at his voice, daring him to go on. “And you head your family business, don’t you?”

The amusement dropped from her face like a curtain ripped away.

Cauldron, could he not even speak to her properly? He’d had centuries to imagine this meeting. He wanted to learn about her more desperately than he’d ever wanted anything, but not if it caused her undue pain. Cassian had done more than enough of that already.

“I do,” Nesta said, unaware of the panic heating his blood. “We trade in six countries.”

Cassian let out a low whistle, the sound carrying in the snowy quiet. “All the mortal realms?”

Nesta’s mouth quirked, a small gestured he wanted badly to understand. “Four mortal, two fae countries on the continent.” She sighed, the sound heavier than her twenty five years. “They called my father the Prince of Merchants, before he lost it all.”

Before her father lost every scrap of their fortune, Cassian remembered. Lost it and never fought to get it back, leaving his three young daughters to scrape by in poverty, defenseless.

Nesta was still speaking, words light as summer rain, even as they twisted his heart. “Dealing with humans isn’t hard,” she told him. It was impossible not to note the distinction in her voice, like she wasn’t one of them. “They like to say I’m cursed, being feared isn’t bad in business.”

Cursed. His name, his love, his soul- a fucking curse emblazoned on her face.

Cassian wanted to hit something- someone. He wanted to rip apart the people who’d shied from her, who’d told a little ten year old girl her soulmate was curse to be born.

All humans had names, even if the bond was pale in comparison to soul magic. They were that lucky, in their short lives, and they’d still spat on her. Cassian was the only Illyrian bastard anyone could remember that had born a mark, they were rare beyond measure in the Steppes. He might have wrecked any who saw her name and sneered, but it never been denied that it was a blessing. No matter how hard he fought, Nesta was his true North, what his life oriented toward.

Gently, Cassian tried to broach that importance. “Feyre told me your parents were soul mates. That most humans find their fated.”

In the silence that had swelled between them, Nesta had tilted back her head, closed her eyes. The cold breeze made her cheeks bloom, strands of deep golden hair slipping free to flutter around her face.

“Yes,” she breathed, before she opened her eyes, “We lost everything shortly after she died, my father was never the same without her.”

Gods damn him, he really was ruining this. Quickly, his voice nowhere near as casual as he wanted it to be Cassian told her, “Soulbonds don’t let us leave each other behind. One dies, the other follows. There’s stories of mates keeping each other alive through sheer force of will when one is wounded. We live and die together.”

Could she hear his desperation, his honesty? Cassian certainly could.

Nesta had gone terribly still, her eyes bright on his. “We?” She asked, that voice all control. Cassian’s mouth opened, but he didn’t have the words as she went on. “Can you read it then? My mark?” It was a command, and all Cassian wanted to do was bend to it.

With an unsteady hand Cassian unlaced the bracer on his right arm, removed the wicked small knife tucked in it. He dropped the armor to the ground and pushed back the tunic underneath, baring dark skin and heartsblood red letters to her eyes.

Her name, in letters so large they shouted, from his elbow to wrist.

Cassian’s soulmark.

—

The fae male, Illyrian, was dangerously beautiful.

Nesta had noted it last night, of course, that all of them were as gorgeous as they most surely were a threat. But alone with him, that hazel green gaze on her face, it was impossible to brush aside.

It made her skin feel too tight, her heart crashing like a cresting wave in her chest. Danger, danger, her pulse said. But it felt like more.

Maybe that was why she couldn’t seem to ignore him, to stop speaking to him. He’d alighted beside her with tangible strength, discipline in his stance, his spine. Nesta was quite sure he was armed with many more blades than the ones she could see, that the casual strength of his massive body could become deadly in an instant.

But he was utterly kinetic too, almost unthinkingly, unable to stop moving while they spoke. The wings that just barely rustled at the tone of her voice, the graceful fingers he didn’t seem to notice tapping against each other, the eyes that never once stopped furiously roaming her face.

But that all stopped when he held out his bare arm to her.

Her name, huge and beautiful, in the same red as those swirling stones that had graced his armor the night before.

Nesta grasped his arm with both hands before she could weigh the gesture. Goosebumps erupted on Cassian’s skin, smooth and perfect in the frozen breeze, but not under her touch. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t- she gasped out, hands so tight muscle flexed beneath them, “How long?”

“Four hundred and ninety two years, eight months, twenty six days,” Cassian breathed, voice equal parts soft and sad, his eyes so green they hurt.

Nearly five hundred years alone, and he’d counted. He wanted her, had looked for her. Cassian didn’t need to tell her that, Nesta could see it every line of his body that curved toward hers, in every bit of his earnest face.

She wanted to laugh, the happiness inside her was so vast. But because he destroyed all her self control, it came out half indignant, the laughter tangling in her words. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Gently, so gently it was barely a touch at all, Cassian ran his fingertips down the curve of her cheek. He touched his name like it might disappear, touched her like she was made of silk and glass. “I thought you were dead.”

Nesta dropped his arm to grip his armored chest, a scoff spilling from her throat before she could stop it. “Why the hell did you think that?”

He smiled at her swearing, head dropping like it was the most natural gesture in the world, until their faces nearly touched. “I’ve only been to the human realms once, during war. I thought I was suppose to meet you then.”

Nesta did laugh then for real, his hair brushing her face as she moved with it. “That’s idiotic,” she told him, sharp and delighted to be near him, to be touching him.

More delighted when his smile grew, when his forehead touched hers. “My brothers told me the same thing.” He’d reached for her arms with unbearable slowness, was tracing the shape of them wonderingly as he spoke. “I didn’t have much hope I’d find you.”

“Rhysand and Azriel?” She guessed, the closeness between them all obvious.

Cassian hummed an affirmative in response, seemingly completely absorbed by learning the shape of her shoulders. Cool fingertips swept high enough to catch her bare collarbones, making her shiver.

All at once he pulled away, took a step back, ice crunching beneath his boots. Nesta wanted to growl in response. She wanted more, more. She finally had a soulmate, a partner. Someone who wanted her, had always wanted her. Her name had been on Cassian’s arm before she’d even been born, and he’d longed for her that entire time.

“I’m not human,” Cassian started, making her blink,” I’m not- I have to fight in this war that is coming. But after that, if you’d let me, I’d like to come back here. To court you properly, however humans do that.” The words were spilling out of him, a nervous rush she could barely understand. Even knowing the words, Nesta truly did not understand. “The war is going to be terrible, but if you still want me, after all the pain. I want to make it up to you. I’m so sorry Nesta, for your childhood- for”- He cut himself off, shaking his head.

Nesta followed the step back he’d taken, crowded back into his space. Her fists where balled at her sides, waiting for him to finish.

Finally, he murmured, looking down at her, “I can smell your tears.”

She blinked again. Fae senses would take some getting used to, perhaps even more than the bleeding heart of this gorgeous male. How he bled for her.

Nesta looked right back at him, wanting like something to burn and rend. There was nothing compromising in her voice when she spoke. “Do you know why having a fae mark is a curse?”

Silently, Cassian shook his head, sorrow spooling in his eyes.

“Because we are different,” Nesta snarled. “Because our marks are all the magic humans have and we die. Because if we’re lucky we might live a eye blink of a faery life to meet our match, and then we’re gone. We’re the curse.”

She stepped even closer, brushing against his chest. Cassian’s eyes were very wide, but he was beginning to understand, hands coming up to clutch her waist desperately.

“That is what I have been told since I was a child,” she went on, seething, “I cried, because I was relieved. Because that was first real hope I had.”

“You,” he replied, eyes shining, voice rumbling from his chest, “were the only hope I ever had.”

Nesta grabbed at his leathers again, hands painfully tight. “And I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted.

Cassian choked on a laugh, but there was something deep and dark in his voice as he agreed. “Like you could get rid of me now.”

The raw promise of it, bloody and real, made Nesta very aware of the body she was pressed against. Of Cassian’s hands, a weight even through her cloak. Of the warmth of his body, even through the layers. Of his full lips curved into a wicked smile, green eyes eating her alive.

On tiptoe, she swayed, let his hands support of her. “Never,” she vowed, right up against his lips before he kissed her.

Those full lips were as soft as they looked, as fierce as she had ever wanted. Cassian kissed her and kissed her, something bright and wild tethering between them. Finally, growling in her mouth, he scooped her right up off the ground entirely. The heady gasp that came from her mouth was swallowed whole as he kissed her more deeply, as he moved to run lips and teeth down her marked throat.

It was only later, much, much later, the sun lower in the sky, that Nesta finished her point.

No one had come looking for them. They’d remained, tangled and gasping, learning each other endlessly until Nesta had shivered so hard Cassian insisted they go inside. Insisted and hoisted her up more securely, her weight like nothing at all to him, and carried her inside, his face buried in her neck.

It was only when she’d begun to laugh, called him a savage in the warm light of her bedroom, that he let her walk.

So it was striding toward the fire, lips kiss reddened and hair tousled from his hands that she asked over her shoulder, arch, “How long do Illyrians live, exactly?”

Cassian’s smile was world ending. He reached for her, wrapped his arms around her again for all that he had just put her down. “As long as High fae,” He promised, tone matching hers.

Nesta reached a possessive hand to brush the dark curling hair from his face, her nails scraping his scalp as Cassian leaned into the touch, molten eyed. “So we have forever,” She told him.

“Forever,” Cassian agreed, and brushed his lips across hers


End file.
